


It Starts With

by Morgana



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 22:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: Tony has issues with space after the events of New York. But he's not going to just lay down and give in to fear. And while he's not expecting it when the being that's more than a little responsible for that fear offers to help him with it, he's not going to look a gift god in the mouth.





	It Starts With

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabentochter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/gifts).



> So... the awesome rabentochter put up a prompt on Tumblr about Loki showing Tony the beauty of space, and this happened.

It starts with the planetarium.

Tony sets one up in a spare bedroom, although it takes him three years to even walk in there, and another six months to have FRIDAY start the program running. But he’s conquered his other fears, goddammit - he learned to shower and swim and even like it again after Afghanistan, he learned to work with Captain America without hearing the incessant comparisons ringing in his ears (much), and by God, he’s going to learn to deal with this, too.

He starts small, just a few stars in the darkness, all of them intimately familiar from years of field trips. Virtual trips through their own solar system that carefully branch out into the neighborhood, and it takes… well, okay, it takes a lot of panic attacks and yelling for lights ten minutes in and even more glasses of whiskey, but eventually, he makes it out as far as the Kuiper Belt. He’s paused the program there, hovering at the edge of the well-known, when he hears, “Perhaps I can be of some assistance.”

Later, Tony won’t ever be able to say whether it was Loki’s calm, dispassionate tone, so clearly uninvested in his emotional well-being, his accent that was so much like JARVIS’ much-missed voice that had grounded him so often, or the pure spite that welled up at the thought of the man (god) that had been more than partially responsible for the fear being there in the first place being the one to set it right - and Tony getting to eventually throw that fact in his stupid fucking asshole of a puppetmaster’s face - but whatever it is, Tony nods. Loki walks into the room, and their sessions begin.

It’s nothing at all like the planetarium. There are still stars spinning all around them, sure, but they’re closer and brighter and  _real_  in a way the planetarium could never hope to be. There are planets and comets and nebulae, there’s the birth of one star and the slow death of another, and Tony gets to see all of it from the warm cocoon that Loki makes for them in the tower room. He gets to step out into space (virtually, or so he tells himself - if it’s not, he’s really not ready to know that yet) and walk around, look at his greatest terrors up close and watch them slowly become something else, something more, before he gets to have them all fade away, and then he gets to have pizza or Thai food or whatever else he’s decided Loki just  _has_  to try, along with movies and popcorn and hot chocolate, before he goes to bed with the knowledge that his dreams will be good ones. He’s still not sure if Loki knows that FRIDAY’s told him about the little bit of magic that’s always infused into the hot chocolate, if Loki thinks he’s getting away with something or if he just hasn’t bothered to mention it, but Tony doesn’t care. It works, and that’s all that matters.

He kisses Loki for the first time under an alien sky, watching a comet that no human eye will see for at least 300,000 years streak across the horizon. It’s all light and color, and it reminds him of what he used to love about space, of the possibilities that it always held when he was young and used to leave the Hayden Planetarium’s show determined to build spaceships and see the universe. And now he has, and it’s at once infinitely more terrifying and infinitely more wondrous than 10-year-old him could possibly have conceived of. Tony doesn’t know if it’s that sense of joy that makes him kiss Loki (although he’d like to think it’s more than just gratitude, since he’s come to really enjoy the snarky asshole’s company over all the nights they’ve spent together) but he doesn’t really question it, just leans in and enjoys the kiss for what it is, soft and curious and surprisingly sweet. And when he pulls back, Loki stares at him for a minute, then moves in and kisses him right back. Only there’s nothing at all soft or sweet about that second kiss.

So, yeah. It starts with the planetarium. But it definitely doesn’t end there.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found rambling about Loki, Tony, The Winter Soldier, and many other things on Tumblr - feel free to join me [here!](https://darklingdawns.tumblr.com/)


End file.
